State v. Glenn

• Decision Date: 31 August 1880
• Docket Number: CASE No. 908.
• Citation: 14 S.C. 118
• Parties: STATE v. GLENN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

14 S.C. 118

STATE

v.GLENN.

CASE No. 908.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Aug. 31st, 1880.

1. Under Article IV., Section 1, of the constitution of this state, it is competent for the legislature to confer upon trial justices jurisdiction of the cases mentioned in Article IV., Section 22, including bastardy. These sections, together with Article I., Section 19, construed.

2. No jurisdiction to hear and determine cases of bastardy has been conferred by law upon trial justices. Under Chapter LXVIII., of general statutes, original jurisdiction in such cases belongs to the Courts of General Sessions.

3. The grant to an inferior court out of the jurisdiction previously exercised by a court of general original jurisdiction, cannot operate as an exclusion of such superior court, unless made so by the terms of the grant.

4. The Court of General Sessions is not excluded by the constitution from taking jurisdiction in cases of bastardy.

5. One convicted of bastardy cannot be sentenced to imprisonment in default of giving bond for the maintenance of the bastard child.

Before NORTHROP, J., Newberry, May, 1876.

Indictment for bastardy. Defendant was convicted and sentenced, and appealed upon the several grounds considered in the opinion of the court; but counsel for both appellant and respondent argued only the last ground, viz., whether the alternative sentence of imprisonment was within the power of the court.

Messrs. Pope & Fair, for appellant.

Mr. Solicitor Ball, contra.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

WILLARD, C. J.

The defendant was arrested under a warrant issued by a trial justice upon a charge of bastardy. Having traversed the charge, the case was transmitted to the General Sessions, and an indictment therefor found, and conviction had under such indictment, and sentence pronounced by the court under Chapter LXVIII. of the general statutes, p. 376. The first question presented by the grounds of appeal is whether the constitution has granted exclusive original jurisdiction in cases of bastardy to justices of the peace so as to exclude trial justices from assuming such jurisdiction. If the conclusion is reached that it was competent for the general assembly to confer on trial justices original jurisdiction in cases of bastardy, then it will be necessary to inquire whether, in the present instance, such jurisdiction has been conferred. If it should appear that no such grant of jurisdiction has, in fact, been made to trial justices, it will become necessary to inquire whether the Court of General Sessions is competent under the constitution and the laws to assume such jurisdiction. If so, whether such jurisdiction was properly assumed in the present case, and whether the judgment of the Court of General Sessions, appealed from, is in conformity with law.

The first of these inquiries involves the question whether a trial justice can exercise the jurisdiction conferred by Section 22, Article IV. of the constitution, consistently with its provisions. That section provides “that justices of the peace, individually, or two or more of them jointly, as the general assembly may direct, shall have original jurisdiction in cases of bastardy,” &c. If this is to be regarded as a grant of exclusive jurisdiction, then trial justices are excluded from exercising the jurisdiction here conferred upon justices of the peace. There are no words in the constitutional grant importing exclusive jurisdiction, and if that conferred is of that nature, it must arise by implication. If the grant of jurisdiction, in case of bastardy, is exclusive, then all the jurisdiction conferred upon justices of the peace by Section 22, Article IV., must be regarded as of the same nature, and, in that case, trial justices, and other inferior courts, must be excluded from participating in such jurisdiction. The jurisdiction conferred on justices of the peace by that section embraces, in addition to cases of bastardy, actions ex contractu and ex delicto, and for fines and forfeitures, under limitations, as it regards the amount involved, prosecutions for assault and battery and other penal offences less than felony, punishable by fines only. To this enumeration is added, by Section 19, Article I., offences less than felony, where the penalty does not exceed a fine of $100 and imprisonment for thirty days. To hold, then, that the jurisdiction conferred on justices of the peace by Section 22, Article IV., is exclusive, would be equivalent to holding that the entire jurisdiction proper to the inferior courts of this state is vested exclusively in justices of the peace, except that over offences punishable by fine not exceeding $100 and imprisonment not exceeding thirty days. Such a conclusion would be inconsistent with a fair construction of the provisions of Section 1, Article IV., as will hereafter appear.

It is necessary, then, to inquire whether a proper construction of Section 1, Article IV., is consistent with the conclusion that the grant to justices of the peace in Section 22, Article IV., is exclusive in its nature; for, if it is not consistent, clearly no implication is admissible having the effect to place the language of Section 22 in antagonism with that of Section 1 of the same article of the constitution.

Section 1, Article IV., is as follows: “The judicial power of this state shall be vested in a Supreme Court, in two Circuit Courts, to wit, a Court of Common Pleas, having civil jurisdiction, and a Court of General Sessions, with criminal jurisdiction only, in Probate Courts, and in justices of the peace. The general assembly may also establish such municipal and other inferior courts as may be deemed necessary.” It must be conceded that this grant of judicial power is exhaustive, so that no other courts than those named, or otherwise provided for, can be constitutionally created by the legislature. The constitution recognizes the distinction between the superior and inferior courts of law, as was held in State v. Fillebrown, 2 S. C. 404, and, accordingly, must be regarded as recognizing the distinction involved in the application of the terms superior and inferior to the respective jurisdictions conferred upon such courts. Regarding then the whole inferior jurisdiction of the state as vested, either actually or contingently, by the section in question, it remains to inquire what disposition is made by Section 1, Article IV., of that inferior jurisdiction. The effect of the clause of Section 1 that provides that “the general assembly may also establish such municipal and other inferior courts as may be deemed necessary,” is the same as if the preceding clause had read and in justices of the peace and in municipal and other inferior courts as the general assembly may deem necessary. In the event of the creation of municipal and other inferior courts, their jurisdiction must of necessity embrace part of that intended to be conferred on justices of the peace, and, therefore, the grant to justices of the peace in Section 1, Article IV., cannot be read as exclusive. This section must then be read as conferring the entireinferior jurisdiction on justices of the peace and such municipal or other inferior courts as the legislature should thereafter create for such purpose, and whenever such courts should be called into existence, to the extent deemed requisite by the legislature they would have concurrent jurisdiction with justices of the peace.

If, then, an exclusive character is denied to the jurisdiction conferred upon justices of the peace by a necessary construction of the terms of Section 1, it is clear that it is not competent to enlarge the sense of the subsequent twenty-second section, by means of implication, so as to produce an opposite effect. In the one case the implication rests on the high ground of necessity, for without it the provision cannot take proper effect, while no such ground exists for enlarging the sense of Section 22. It must be concluded then that the grant contained in Section 22 to justices of the peace does not contemplate vesting exclusive jurisdiction in such officers, but that the whole jurisdiction conferred upon justices of the peace is capable of being made concurrent in justices of the peace and such municipal or other inferior court as the legislature may see fit to create.

It may be argued that Section 19, Article I., marks out the proper jurisdiction capable of being exercised by such municipal or other inferior courts as the legislature may see fit to create, and that by reading that section with Section 1, Article IV., the conclusion may be reached that, as it regards the particular jurisdiction specified in Section 19, Article I., concurrent jurisdiction may exist between justices of the peace and municipal or other inferior courts created for that purpose, and as to the residue of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace conferred by Section 22, Article IV., such jurisdiction may be regarded as exclusive in them. In order to reach such a construction it is necessary to regard Section 19, Article I., as intended to define and circumscribe the jurisdiction proper to be exercised by such inferior courts as the legislature might see fit to establish, by limiting such inferior courts to the particular jurisdiction provided for in that section. It is necessary then to examine that section to see if such an intention can be made out from it.

Section 19 is as follows: “All offences less than felony, and in which the punishment does not exceed a fine of $100 or imprisonment for thirty days, shall be tried summarily before a justice of the peace or other officer authorized by law, on information under oath, without indictment or intervention of a grand jury, saving to the defendant the right of appeal; and no person shall be held to answer for any higher crime or offence unless on presentment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land and naval service, or in the militia when...